Improvement of Farm Animal Breeding by DNA Sequencing
97 processes. It has the potential to increase genetic progress as well as offering an insight into pig
disease and immunity traits and will assist in efforts to preserve the global heritage of rare, endangered and wild pigs. It also will be important for the study of human health because pigs
are very similar to humans in their physiology, behavior and nutritional needs. To date, researchers have identified several genes or DNA regions that are associated with traits of
economic importance including reproduction, growth, lean and fat quantity, meat quality traits and disease resistance. A number of gene and marker tests are now available commercially
from genotyping service companies. Examples are CAST meat quality, ESR and EPOR litter size, FUT1 E. coli disease resistance, HAL halothane – meat quality, stress, IGF2 carcase,
MC4R growth and fat, PRKAG3 meat quality, RN meat quality Walters, 2011.
2.3.5 Horse
The equine genome map was completed in the year 2007. Its applications are comparable to the development of antibiotics. Antibiotics benefited the health of everything; this is going
to benefit the health of horses to the same extent in the next 50 years because of the things we can find out .More than 45 years ago, the introduction of antibiotics for use in animals
greatly improved animal health and productivity. Today, genetic testing, gene therapy and the identification of genetic markers for certain diseases offer an even bigger opportunity
for advancement in the equine industry Steffanus, 2010.The Equine Genetic Diversity Consortium EGDC represents a collaborative, international community of equine
researchers who are working to build a comprehensive understanding of genetic diversity among equine populations across the world and their work in future going to stimulate new
studies into the origins of breeds and breed-defining traits and guide efforts to preserve genetic diversity Petersen et al .,2011.
2.3.6 Poultry
Advances in DNA sequencing technology, the chicken genome project results, and a lot of hard work by researchers and geneticists are being combined by poultry primary breeders to change
the way selection is done in pedigree flocks. Research projects involving pedigree lines from poultry primary breeders are demonstrating that genomic selection can increase the rate of
progress in all traits, including economically important ones. Chickens have hundreds of thousands of SNPs in their genome. Phenotype information like growth rate, feed conversion in
Broilers and egg production, egg quality and life span of the birds in layers are gathered from individuals within pedigree populations, and this is correlated with the individuals’ SNPs. With
the use of statistics, an individual’s SNPs can be compared to information in the database and a genomic breeding value can be assigned to the animal. Analysis of an individual’s SNPs can
allow selection to take place earlier in the life cycle of the animal, thus genomic selection can cut the generation time down, which speeds the rate of progress Keefe, 2011.
2.3.7 Buffalo
The water buffalo is vital to the lives of small farmers and to the economy of many countries worldwide. Not only are they draught animals, but water buffalo also produce meat, horns,
skin and particularly the rich and precious milk that gives creams, butter, yogurt and many cheeses. Just recently, we sequenced a male water buffalo animal using the Illumina Genome
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DNA Sequencing – Methods and Applications
98 Analyzer II with a paired end of 101 bp. A full run generated more than 230 million reads,
which resulted in approximately 46 Gb of high quality sequences. In this pilot study, we tested 210 pairs of water buffalo sequences for their bovine orthologs using a cross species mega
BLAST approach developed at NCBI. Among these 210 pairs of sequences, only 7 pairs 3.3 hit absolutely nothing in the bovine genome. One hundred twenty pairs of sequences 57
had sole unique hits with one or both ends. For the remaining 83 pairs that had multiple hits in the bovine genome, 31 unique hits can be identified manually based on the aligned length and
sequence similarity to the bovine orthologs. The alignment size between both species ranged from 42 bp to 122 bp, but with 93 alignments having more than 85 bp in length. This pilot
study provides initial evidence that de novo water buffalo genome sequences can be comparatively assembled based on the cattle genome assembly Jiang et al ., 2011.
3. Conclusions
The genetic improvement of animals is a fundamental, incessant, and complex process. In recent years many methods have been developed and tested. The genetic polymorphism at
the DNA sequence level has provided a large number of markers and revealed potential utility of application in animal breeding. The invention of polymerase chain reaction PCR
in accordance with the constantly increasing accuracy in DNA sequencing methods also represents a milestone in this endeavor. Selection of markers for different applications are
influenced by certain factors - the degree of polymorphism, the automation of the analysis, radioisotopes used, reproducibility of the technique, and the cost involved. Presently, the
huge development of molecular markers by DNA sequencing will continue in the near future. It is expected that molecular markers will serve as an underlying tool to geneticists
and breeders to create animals as desired and needed by the society.
Farm animal genomic sequencing continues to attract audiences excited by the multitude of applications. The dairy and meat industry can now use cow and chicken genomic data to
confirm the quality of dairy and meat products. Many scientists are using genomic information to determine disease-resistant genes in Cattle, Sheep, Goat and Horse and then
